Fraser Milner Casgrain Ur R Place Ville Marie, Suite 39Oo FMC Montréal, QC, Canada H3B 4M7 LAW - - MAIN S14 878 8800 FAX 514 866 2241
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Fraser Milner Casgrain ur r Place Ville Marie, Suite 39oo FMC Montréal, QC, Canada H3B 4M7 LAW - - MAIN s14 878 8800 FAX 514 866 2241 September 2L,20t2 SENT BY ELECTRONIC MAIt British Columbia Securities Commission Alberta Securities Commission Saskatchewan Financial Services Commission Manitoba Securities Commission Ontario Securities Commission Autorité des marchés financiers New Brunswick Securities Commission Registrar of Securities, Prince Edward lsland Nova Scotia Securities Commission Superintendent of Securities, Newfoundland and Labrador Superintendent of Securities, Northwest Territories Superintendent of Securities, Yukon Superintendent of Securities, Nunavut c/o Me Anne-Marie Beaudoin John Stevenson, Secretary Corporate Secretary Ontario Securities Commission Autorité des marchés financiers 20 Queen Street West 800, square Victoria, 22" élage Suite 1-900, Box 55 C.P. 246, Tour de la Bourse Toronto, Ontario M5H 3S8 Montréal, Québec H47 LG3 Dear Sirs/Mesdames: RE: Request for comments on Consultation Paper 25-4OL - Potential Regulation of Proxy Advisory Firms ("Consultation Paper") ln response to the request for comments on the Consultation Paper issued on June 21.,20t2by the securities regulators of all provinces and territories of Canada, we are pleased to submit the following comments. This letter represents the general comments of certain lawyers of Froser Milner Cosgrain LLP's securities proctice group and does not necessorily represent the views of the firm generolly or ony of its clients. These comments ore submitted without prejudice to ony position token or that moy be token by the firm on its own behalf or on behalf of any of its clients. MoNTRÉAL OTTAWA TORONTO EDMONTON CALGARY VANCOUVER fmc-law,com 2457974_2llmanMTL Fraser Milner Casgrain llr Page2 Following our review of the Consultation Paper and five main concerns identified therein, we believe that adopting a best practices approach would best serve the interests of all market participants. Albeit we acknowledge the need for a regulatory framework for proxy advisory firms, we are of the opinion that implementation of such a framework should be incremental as to avoid unforeseen external effects or the law of unintended consequences. For now, we consider that the concerns set forth in the Consultation Paper can be addressed efficiently by providing proxy advisory firms with certain recommended practices and guidelines, rather than adopting a rule-based approach. That said, we would suggest that in developing such recommended practices and guidelines, the securities regulators stress the importance of managing conflicts of interest and correcting inaccuracies in voting recommendation reports with a view of preserving market integrity and ensuring quality of the shareholder vote. With regards to the development of the best practices applicable to proxy advisory firms, we provide the following comments for your consideration: 1.. Potential conflicts of interest As mentioned above, we believe that the best practices should put particular emphasis on the management of conflicts of interest within proxy advisory firms, since insufficient control in this regard could seriously impact the integrity of the voting process. ln keeping consistent with the approach we recommend, we agree with the securities regulators that outright prohibition of conflicts of interest would be excessive. However, we support a two-sided approach based on (i)the adoption of policies and procedures aimed to identify and mitigate conflicts of interest, and (ii)extensive disclosure of such policies and procedures and of all conflicts of interest that arise in connection with the issuance of vote recommendations. ln particular, while we believe that conflict of interest policies and procedures should be developed by the proxy advisory firms themselves based on their respective organizational structures, we suggest that securities regulators elaborate certain recommended features (e.g. a code of ethics dealing with employee conflicts and ownership conflicts, strong ethical wall policies, etc.) to achieve a certain level of consistency and efficiency in the policies and procedures of proxy advisory firms in Canada. Furthermore, to ensure that those policies remain adequate and allow proper management of conflicts of interest, proxy advisory firms should be encouraged to set up an internal committee to review the effectiveness of policies and procedures. The establishment of such a committee would also facilitate a dialogue between proxy advisory firms and other market participants when issues arise or when additional details on disclosed conflicts of interest are requested. We find that the practice of certain proxy advisory firms to issue voting recommendations on governance matters while concurrently providing for-profit consulting services to the same issuers is a serious point of concern and potential threat to market integrity. Albeit ethical wall policies and physical segregation of proxy voting and consulting services would help address this concern, we believe that the recommendation should be expressly made to proxy advisory firms to clearly indicate, on the front page of each proxy report, whether the issuer is a client or prospective client of the consulting branch of the proxy advisory firm. A mere boilerplate lmc-law.com 2457974_2llmanurL Fraser Milner Casgrain r.r-e Page 3 statement in the report to the effect that the issuer may be a client of the proxy advisory firm is not, in our opinion, sufficient to arouse readers' attention. ln addition, with regards to employee conflicts of interest, we would suggest that policies or code of ethics require that any analyst and/or reviewer who holds a personal ownership interest in the stock of an issuer with respect to which a matter is put to a vote declare such interest and be prohibited from issuing a recommendation in connection therewith. On the question of disclosure, we agree that proxy advisory firms should publish their conflict of interest policies and procedures on their websites. We further believe, as indicated above, that conflicts of interest should be clearly and fully disclosed in the proxy reports, with a reference or link towards the policies and procedures found online. 2. Lack of transparency We understand that this concern relates to the potential influence of vote recommendations on investors who do not have access to the associated vote recommendation reports prepared by the proxy advisory firms. ln line with the approach suggested in the Consultation Paper, we also believe that best practices for proxy advisory firms should be to encourage disclosure of all general internal procedures, methodologies, guidelines, standards, assumptions, data gathering procedures and informational sources, Such an approach would not infringe upon the private nature of the reports given to their clients on a subscription basis. Furthermore, disclosure of general procedures and guidelines would provide non-subscribing investors with an opportunity to better understand and evaluate vote recommendations that are made publicly available through press releases. That being said, it must be acknowledged that the analysis provided in the private reports to clients is not necessarily a straightforward application of general procedures and guidelines; some matters require a more nuanced approach. Consequently, non-subscribing investors could potentially be misled and assume that only general procedures and guidelines were considered in the making of a specific vote recommendation. ln our opinion, the solution to this problem lies in educating market participants on this very fact. ln other words, it would be important that disclosure help market participants understand that, in certain cases, other undisclosed factors or principles are at play in the making of a vote recommendation. Consequently, market participants will be able to better understand the context in which vote recommendations are issued and not be unduly influenced by general procedures and guidelines. 3. Potential inaccuracies and limited opportunity for issuer engagement As outlined in the Consultation Paper, the vote recommendations and associated reports issued by proxy advisory firms might be heavily relied upon by certain institutional investors, as well as retail investors where such recommendations are released publicly. Thus, in addition to efficient analysis procedures, it is of the outmost importance that the underlying data put to analysis be f mc-law.com 2457974_2llmanMTL Fraser Milner Casgrain r-r.e Page 4 accurate. Voting recommendations issued on the basis of incorrect or false facts may mislead investors, resulting in ill-informed voting decisions. For the above reasons, we believe that best practices for proxy advisory firms should promote increased dialogue with issuers and greater engagement of the latter in the preparation of the voting recommendation reports. ln our opinion, those two key objectives could best be achieved by the implementation of a policy aimed at dealing with issuer comments on draft reports, as is suggested in the Consultation Paper, Contrary to the conflict of interest policies and procedures which need to be tailored in accordance with the size and structure of the proxy advisory firms, we believe that the interests of all market participants would be best served with harmonized policies on issuer feedback among the different proxy advisory firms. As such, we suggest that securities regulators consider designing a standard